How do I handoff chats to human agents in Chatref?

Chatref’s shared inbox is where every AI‑handled conversation lives. In e‑commerce, when the chatbot fields questions about an order or a product, the entire thread shows up here even before a human agent needs to intervene. If the AI can’t answer or a customer asks to speak with someone, your team simply opens the inbox, sees the full chat history, and takes over the same thread. There’s no copying, no lost context. For Shopify stores, this means your support team can monitor live chats and jump in exactly when a shopper needs a personal touch.

Custom actions let you build handoff triggers directly into the chat. You can create a “Talk to a person” button that, when clicked by a customer, brings the conversation to the top of the inbox and optionally fires an internal notification. Alternatively, you can set up keyword‑based rules: if a customer types “refund” or “cancellation”, the action escalates the chat automatically. For Shopify merchants, this ensures that complex inquiries about billing or returns are handed off before the customer gets frustrated, while simple questions stay with the AI.

Use conversation tags to keep handoffs under control. When an AI chat is escalated, you can automatically apply a tag like handoff‑requested or priority. Agents can then filter the inbox to see only those tags, claim the next available one, and mark it handled. Manual tagging also helps: tag a chat shipping‑delayed or high‑cart‑value so the right team member picks it up. This makes it easy for an e‑commerce team to sort, track, and measure what kinds of inquiries are repeatedly handed off, closing the loop on process improvements.

• Place a clear handoff button during checkout so shoppers know they can get human help for urgent payment or delivery issues.
• Set escalation triggers for high‑value carts – automatically tag any chat where cart value exceeds $200 for a human follow‑up.
• Use tags to spot product‑knowledge gaps – if the same product keeps generating handoffs, update your training documents so the AI can handle it next time.
• Train your team to claim chats from the shared inbox quickly and post‑handoff, tag the conversation to track resolution time.

How do I escalate support chats to a human agent?
You escalate chats using the shared inbox and custom actions. Enable a “Request a person” custom action in your chat widget; when a user clicks it, the conversation appears in your shared inbox for an agent to take over. You can also set automatic escalation based on keywords (e.g., “cancel order”) so chats are handed off without the customer asking.

How do I transfer customer conversations between AI and human agents?
Transfers happen natively in the shared inbox. The AI handles the initial exchange, and the full thread is visible in real time. A human agent can join the same thread, reply, and the AI will step back. Once resolved, the human closes the thread, and the AI resumes for new chats. There’s no separate routing or data loss.

How do I handle complex customer inquiries that the AI can’t resolve?
Use conversation tags and custom actions together. Create a custom action that triggers a handoff and simultaneously applies a tag like complex‑inquiry. Your team can filter the inbox for these tags, see the AI’s attempted answers, and step in with the nuanced help the customer needs. For repeating complex topics, review the tagged conversations to identify and improve your AI’s knowledge base.